1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method for purifying DNA and RNA oligonucleotides and analogs thereof.
2. Background
DNA oligomers containing a few to on the of order 100 bases are commonly produced by automatic synthesizer machines and are available from many commercial suppliers. Oligomers are formed by adding the DNA bases one at a time by chemical modification of the ends of the growing oligomers. The steps in this process are not 100% efficient, and the resulting oligomeric products typically have errors of base omission of a fraction of a percent per base. There may also be errors of base substitution or addition that are dependent on chemical purity. Hence, significant impurities will be present in the form of shortened and base-substituted oligomers. While there may be a significant number of oligomers containing errors, the quantity of oligomers having any particular incorrect sequence is very small. The present state of the art requires purification using columns or electrophoresis gels to attain 95% purity.
Mosaic Technologies offers a gel supported DNA product that is capable of carrying out this type of purification. However, the gel operates by immobilizing the desired DNA by capture on DNA adhered to the gel having complementary sequences and subsequently removing the desired DNA from the gel as a purified product.